Holy Crap!

Paper titled, appropriately
for today, "Monday"

I woke up this morning after a dreary, drowsy Sunday and checked my Facebook status. Quietly my friend  Cynthia Frenette (illustrator, graphic designer extraordinaire and all around DIYer) posted that she likes Hawthorne Threads. Hmm... I click on the link AND WOW! First of all you have to understand that I love paper and fabric like nobody's business. Every time I come across Cosmo Cricket paper, I admit it, I splurge. I can't help myself. I really can't.

"Early bird elements"-Paper

So there I am totally speechless as I oogle over all the patterns and design, then I stopped breathing all together when  I realized they have Cosmo Cricket FABRIC!!! Eeek!

Will trade produce for bunny poop!

The first harvest from our garden: baby red potatoes, crisp carrots and my favourite (especially for colour) candy striped beets. I always like to plant something a little different. A couple of years ago I planted apple cucumbers! I grew so many I took bag after bag to the food bank! There are only so many apple cucumbers, as yummy as they may be, one family can consume.

Recently I picked up a  book called "Small-Plot, High-Yield Gardening: How to Grow Like a Pro, Save Money and Eat Well by Turning Your Back (or Front or Side) Yard Into An Organic Produce Garden" -By Sal Gilbertie, Larry Sheehan.  I picked up this (longest titled book EVAR!) from my favourite book store, "Wendel's" in Fort Langley. If you ever need inspiration or just time away from the hustle and bustle, Wendel's is the place to go; it also had a great little restaurant attached to it. As for my new book (with the longest title evar) it has great, practical  ideas and advice that you wish your grandparents had handed down to you. It's a real easy read with a good sense of humour. By the time you're done the book you'll be asking everyone you know if they have a bunny (or bunnies) and if you can have their poop.  The authors swear by rabbit poop!... (hmmm) you don't have a bunny do you?

This is where the Prairie part comes in...

I was born and raised in Alberta. Not the rocky mountain part, or the desert part and not the foothill ranch land part... well I was born there but not raised. Often times I think people assume Calgary = Alberta.  Nope, I was raised around the rolling fields of wheat, alfalfa and barley.

"In  the wee hours"

Detail on back of  "In the wee hours"

Growing up I never really thought about the landscape much. All I thought about was getting out of Dodge! I was the girl who couldn't wait to leave her hometown. I wanted to bust outta there so bad! Eventually I did... to Calgary... but after two years of studying art there (and two years of driving in spectacularly horrible winter conditions to Edmonton to see my boyfriend, now husband-score!) we decided to jump ship and move to a city we could both study in Vancouver! The plan:  finish two years of school (print making for me, writing for him), graduate and move back home to Alberta...which never, nor will ever happen.

Detail of sun - "In the wee hours"

Detail of fence-"In the wee hours"

We loved Vancouver! Water as far as the eye could see, sky scrapers, trees as big as sky scrapers and mountains-all in one City! The gray skies were a little hard to get used to but doable.What shocked me the most about this move was my physical reaction to the landscape change. I wanted something new, I wanted to live somewhere other than where I had grown up, I wanted this... you know that saying "absence makes the heart grow fonder"-well darn it, it's true! I began to long for openness, solitude and a horizon. Skip ten years later and we haven't moved back to Alberta, but here I sit in my yellow farm house on a flat piece of  land that looks rather prairie-ish nestled by a rolling mountains in the background.

" Quietly"

I guess in a very round about way, my claim is this - if I had never moved away from the prairies, my prints of  grain elevators never would have existed. I'm not sure I  would have appreciated what the prairies had to offer me and I'm not sure I would have realized how ingrained it is in me to this day.

  

Detail of Railroad - "Quietly"

Detail of sun -"Quietly"

Recently, in the last year I've had quite a bit of interest around my grain elevator prints. Mostly it's been interest from people who have moved away, like myself but for these recent prints it was for a person who I grew up with in Alberta and now lives in Saskatchewan (nobody offer her condolences like everyone did when they heard we were going there for our holidays last year... Saskatchewan is a beautiful province). On these prints I did something a little different this time, I don't know why I didn't think of it before? I hope you like it as much as I do!

Detail on back of "Quietly".

 Lisa loved horses growing up and now, as it should be, raises horses herself!

So who would you dress up as for a Dead Celebrirty party?

My husband and I were invited to a "Dead Celebrity Party." We like to dress up: it's fun and this gave my husband a chance to combine two of his favourite things - music and zombies. He went as a freshly deceased Kurt Cobain (yup that's my man).

Who would I be? It's got to be a costume with the right mix,  reflecting one's personality with the person you're pretending to be. Actually I knew right away who I wanted to dress up as.

"No one will know who you are!" was the instant feedback from my husband on my costume idea.

I kinda knew this already but I had always wanted to dress up as this woman, even though in the 10 years we have been throwing our annual Halloween parties there was always something more Halloween(ie) to be. I had studied about this woman in art school, she was married to a very famous muralist and partied with the Rockefellers back in the day. She's on plenty of pop culture items such as buttons, posters, jewelry etc. She's had countless books written about her and had a motion picture made about her life. She was a strong female artist and sexy but not in a typical or blatant way.

There were plenty of sexy and awesome costumes at the party:

Marlyn Monroe (a staple)
Audry Hepburn (very classy)
Sid and Nancy (a great couples costume)
Jim Morrison,
Eazy-E ( I'm not sure who Eazy-E is but my Husband was impressed)

Steve Irwin, The Crocodile hunter, with the end of the stingray hanging out of his wet suit chest:
 

 Evil Knievel, although I'm not sure if the fellow dressed up as Evil was dressing up or really channeling him?

Our hosts went as Mr. Rogers and the sexiest Julia Child you will ever see (Hellooooooooo!):

A few brave people asked me who I was. They kinda had a feeling who I was from my eyebrow (or should I say unibrow?) and once I mentioned Salma Hayek they were like ahh.Then my husband would give me a look of "see I told you nobody would know who Frida Kahlo was", I didn't care! I felt my back straighten in pride just as Frida carried her body. I loved wearing all the bracelets and bangles, the shawl and best of all the flowers in my hair. I enjoyed, even for one night, pretending to own it the way Frida did.

I thought I did a pretty great job. Perhaps I was missing one little detail:

Now I put it to you, who would you dress up as for dead celebrity party? I'm dying to know (get it dying to know...)

Just in case your answer is Frida Kahlo too, here are some of my favourite Frida Kahlo(ish) things I've come across:

Mexican Maxi Party Dress 

Monarca Black Mexican Dress Tunic

Embroidered Vintage Blouse

Emerald Garden Necklace

Frida Azul Necklace 

Raven Necklace

Silver Skull Pendant 

Seed Paper Project (with help from the kids)

I've had a couple reincarnations as and artist, one of them was as a paper maker. However one thing that I have always carried with me, through out my incarnations, is my Prairie practicality. Whatever I have, I've got to use up and not waste (hold that thought).

Last year I found this book, by Kerri Smith in San Francisco. I was so excited when I found it in the store, since earlier that day I had just been explaining to my husband how I was interested in Guerilla Art. After I calmed his fears about having to bail me out of jail for tagging, we talked at great length about how Guerilla Art (a random act of kindness, if you will) can effect a community.

I love the idea of making art for no other reason than to make the world a more interesting place. I found myself particularly drawn to the Seed Bombs but we modified it into "SEED PAPER"  (here is where the need to use up materials comes in).

We picked a sunny day, got out some buckets  filled them with water. Then we went to town, ripped up paper, (the kids favourite part) threw it in a blender and made some pulp. I used left over cotton fibers and some abbacca but mostly we used paper from our recycling. It was also a good excuse to clean out some storage space. I also used a few of my old prints from my printmaking days. When I said I've had a couple of reincarnations I wasn't kidding and did I really need 10 additions of each print? This project was particularly exciting for me because I not only did I uses up left over materials  I also freed up some space for myself. YES!

Then came the wet part. We pulled sheets of paper (got soaked) with our screens (got soaked), squished the water out (got soaked) and sprinkled our seeds in the paper. Then we sandwiched the seeds between sheets of paper (which wasn't really part of the wet process but we were already soaked). We used sunflower seeds, poppies, hollyhocks, cone flowers anything that was perennial.

We hung the sheet of paper on our patio doors and a few of them we placed dried maple leave on top.

Neko, our girl cat hung out to supervise and to soak in all the sun!

After a day or so the paper had dried on the windows and it was time to pull them off ...

And reap our rewards! Stack O' Paper!

We attached a little note inviting people to join our forces and to become  "GUERILLA GARDENERS"


For mission details or to figure out what to do if one of these sheets surfaces in your vicinity visit:

http://redspottedpatch.blogspot.com/2010/05/guerrillas-in-our-midst.html

Happy gardening in your yard or in an urban area that needs some green love!

Time Flies when you're having fun!

My son turned 10 this week and I think I'm still in shock, how did this happen?

Wasn't it last Halloween we dressed him up as Elvis and put him in Chris's guitar case?

 

I remember like it was yesterday when he got the scar above his left eye.

AND

I'm sure it was a few hours ago I listened to the stories he made up about the
"OCTOPUS SHARK"

I found him once pressing on the top of his hand, what is he doing I thought to myself, then it hit me he was being Buzz Light Year and shooting his Lazer while making sound effects.I still get all sentimental when I hear the "Toy Story" theme song.

He certainly had his "Monster Moments"

...but there we a lot of changes in his life, we moved,  he acquired a little brother

and a little orange furry creature that he adored-Yo Jo. I  didn't think it was possible to see someones heart break until the night Yo Jo didn't come home.

He always loved animals and they didn't have to be fuzzy.

But being his father's son he also loved video games . I  lost him at playing Jak and Daxter, it was too advanced for me. Remember Freddy Fish or Pajama Sam, they re still more my speed.

It seems like there was no time in between him cutting teeth to loosing teeth

Luckily his younger brother doesn't  introduce us as "Maceo's Mom, Maceo's Dad, Maceo's Grandma, Maceo's Grandpa, Maceo's Aunite Julie..." any more as cute as that was!

He was nervous about turning 10 because he thought he'd have to stop playing but I told him just because you're in double digits you don't have to stop playing!

There are time to be serious sure, but there is always opportunity to play no matter how old you are

I just can't believe it,  when he was little  people would stop me and say, "enjoy it it will be gone before you know it." I would smile knowing I took a million photos. Some how it hit me this week he's 10! 10 years did go by in the blink on an eye. It makes me appreciate the fossils he's fascinated by even more... I just wish

I'd gotten him something more than a TV dinner!

(just kidding they're cupcakes, see there is always time to play)
Happy 10th birthday Maceo

Love Mom(my)

Happy Belated Mother's day!

.

When  I first showed my friend Linda "Lizzy-B" (drawing on your left) I was excited but didn't really know where to go with it. Linda suggested I ask my friends for their favourite dresses and to draw them. So I did. Which is how the drawing above came to be and how it found it's name "Lysa, Jen, Cori and Linda"

The First skirt is mine and well, I have a confession, Jen never got her dress to me. However the second skirt even though it is mine, always reminds me of Jen, she has this incredible sense of design I find inspiring. The third dress is Cori's. Cori is the sweetest person I have ever met and I loved the hemline of the dress she brought me! Linda that's hers on the end (right). Linda is the wisest person I've ever known. I know if  I can't figure something out, all I have to do is pop over for tea. Somewhere in our visit she'll help me find the answer to what ever problem I need to solve.

Each of these lovely ladies are Mothers and each of them have their own style of Mothering that I admire.

  To them and to you I wish you a Happy Mother's day!  Even if it is a day (or two) late-Oops